The Ministry of Industry and Trade will establish ANO to support AI projects

The Ministry of Industry and Trade plans to finance projects in the field of introducing AI technologies in industry by establishing an ANO that will select them. This can be software for designing products without human intervention, computer vision systems that detect manufacturing defects in products, as well as video analytics for protecting enterprises. Kommersant’s sources suggest that ANO specialists will also prepare regulations for the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

An interlocutor of Kommersant in one of the Russian IT companies said that the Ministry of Industry and Trade plans to select and finance promising projects in the field of artificial intelligence for industry. The ministry, he says, will establish a profile autonomous non-profit organization (ANO), “Vasily Shpak has been appointed to supervise the deputy minister, the volume of supported projects has been set for him as a KPI.” ANO will be created on the basis of the FGAU “Resource Center for Universal Design and Rehabilitation Technologies” (RTsUD and RT) subordinate to the ministry, he adds.

The RTsUD and the Republic of Tatarstan forwarded questions to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, where Kommersant confirmed that the FGAU “is at the initial stage of transformation into an applied center for the development of artificial intelligence in industry.” Support for industrial enterprises, they say in the ministry, will go “at the informational, analytical and consulting levels.” The Ministry of Industry and Trade did not answer the question about financial support.

From the “road map” approved in December 2022 “Development of the high-tech direction “Artificial Intelligence” (AI) for the period up to 2030″, it follows that 24.6 billion rubles will be allocated from the budget to support such projects, about 99.7 more billion rubles Sberbank will direct for these purposes.

Judging by the technological part of the document, the Ministry of Industry and Trade is responsible for the development of solutions for the industry. Among them are the development of video-analytical software and hardware systems for ensuring safety at industrial facilities, intelligent vision systems for recognizing product defects on production lines, as well as computer-aided design systems capable of designing products without human intervention.

With the help of the ANO, the ministry also wants to get an expert center, whose specialists will advise officials in the preparation of regulations, suggests the interlocutor of Kommersant in a semiconductor manufacturer. The Design Centers Consortium Association (which unites more than 70 companies, including Yadro, Aquarius, GS Group) names the most promising support for solutions in the field of new technologies for fast memory and fast processors, specialized segmentation and classification models, mastering photonic processors and coprocessors.

It would be effective for developers to create a single resource with a list of problems, needs and tasks of the state and large companies, where any contractor or accredited IT company could offer a solution and receive a project or support in the form of a community, partners and grants, the head of the frontend- developments of IT company SimbirSoft Ilya Bashilov.

Russian industrial enterprises are showing interest in AI for decision support systems and recommendation services, says Maxim Kuznetsov, Deputy Director of the Skoltech Center for Artificial Intelligence Technologies. “Enterprises have also seen the potential of AI in video analytics and SLAM (mapping and simultaneous localization technology),” he notes. Russian industrial enterprises, adds Dina Ashrapova, director of government relations at T1, are in demand for data analysis solutions that help optimize supply chains, predict breakdowns and maintenance.

Nikita Korolev